


Old Flame Burning

by TurtleTotem



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [10]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst and Feels, Charles in a Wheelchair, Exes, F/M, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10043426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: It's ridiculous for Charles to dread meeting the best man at his sister's wedding, just because he shares a name with Charles's ex. It's not as though it could possibly be the same Erik.(On Tumblrhere.)





	

It gave Charles a bit of a turn when Raven mentioned that Azazel’s best man’s name was Erik, but he quashed the feeling immediately. How silly to hold someone’s name against them, a perfect stranger who had nothing to do with the man who broke Charles’s heart. Not to mention his spine.

“He’s an old college friend of Az’s,” Raven said, “and apparently he’s kind of prickly. Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t like you; you just have to put up with him for a few hours. You are _not,”_ she stepped very close to him, eyes narrowing, and the rolling pin she’d been about to scan into her wedding registry suddenly looked very ominous in her hand, “letting anything ruin my wedding. _Anything._ Understood?”

“Entirely,” Charles assured her. “Besides, I’m sure I can win him over. After all, I’m irresistible!”

“Yes, Charles.” She rolled her eyes and went back to scanning.

*

“Erik’s plane was delayed,” Azazel said, mournful and frustrated. “He’s not going to make the bachelor party. Maybe not even the rehearsal.”

“Is he going to miss the ceremony?” Raven was alarmed—more, Charles judged, at the prospect of such a wrench in her plans than any particular concern for the groomsman she’d never met.

Azazel shrugged. “Ask Chicago weather, not me.”

For himself, Charles was relieved. Stupidly so, he knew that, but he couldn’t help being anxious about having such close contact with the mysterious Erik. Charles had caught a glimpse of the seating chart, and this Erik even spelled his name the same way as the real—of course this Erik was real, too—fine, the original—no, he wasn’t a clone—as Charles’s Erik—oh, that was absolutely the end and he was done thinking about this!

The wedding rehearsal was a bit strange, Charles “escorting” a blank space to and from the altar. As they had hoped, the steroid shots did a lot to help him limp down the aisle with a cane instead of a wheelchair, but he was careful not to overdo it. Save his strength for the morrow. He hoped this Erik wouldn’t mind Charles leaning on him a bit, if necessary. He was fairly sure collapsing during the ceremony would count as ruining Raven’s wedding, by his own definition if not hers.

*

Morning came, and the ceremony inched closer and closer, with no sign of the elusive best man.

“He is on the plane,” Azazel said over and over. “He will be here. Raven, _krasavitsa_ , stop chewing on your gloves. If there is a hole in the procession, it will not kill anyone.”

Charles, for one—and not without a certain unjustified relief—had entirely given up on the possibility of Erik arriving by the time they were all gathered at the church. To his surprise, however, Azazel let out a whoop just as they were assembling for the walk down the aisle.

“Text from Erik!” he announced. “He is outside. Go let him in, I must get to altar!”

Charles ran for the front door of the church, threw open the door—and felt the entire universe stop dead.

“Charles?” Erik said, squinting a little, as if unable to believe his eyes. His Erik, the real original Erik, the Erik he had _known beyond doubt_ was not the Erik who would be coming today.

Almost before Charles even knew what he was doing, he had pulled back his fist, and shot it forward into Erik’s face.

Erik staggered back, Charles staggered forward, and they might both have tumbled down the church stairs if not for Raven, who had followed Charles to the door and now yanked Charles upright by the back of his collar.

“Charles, what are you doing?” Raven cried.

“It’s him, it’s Erik—”

“Of course it’s Erik! We _told_ you it was Erik, the whole point is that he’s Erik!” Raven, who had never met the ex-boyfriend Charles never talked about, closed her eyes and made rather alarming gibbering noises for a moment, on the verge of tears. “Charles, I am walking down the aisle in _two minutes_. You’d better be there, and he’d better be there, and nothing better mess this up. Just deal with whatever you need to deal with so that I can get married and finally have this mess over with!”

She turned, nearly tripped over Charles’s dropped cane, which she picked up and half-flung at him, and stormed off.

Charles leaned heavily on his cane in the church doorway, glaring down at Erik, who was rubbing his jaw as he got to his feet.

“It’s good to see you, Charles,” Erik said, hoarse and stunned. “And walking!”

“No thanks to you,” Charles snapped.

“Charles… I’m sorr—”

“No,” Charles said. “You don’t get to talk to me, not yet. If we’re doing this, we do it my way.”

Erik nodded. “Whatever you say.”

Charles turned and limped down the hallway toward the chapel, half-hoping Erik wouldn’t follow.

*

Charles survived walking down the aisle arm-in-arm with Erik Lehnsherr. He survived standing next to him throughout the ceremony, and walking out again. He got through it, hating every minute, hating the adrenaline that made his hands shake and the churning memories under his skin—screaming tires and breaking glass, the smells and tastes and sounds of the hospital, pain and the horrible place where pain stopped and might never come back.

Erik had no right to show his face here, no right to do this to him. Because of Erik he walked with a cane, when he walked at all, and because of Erik he would remember the sensation of the best man’s shoulder brushing his better than the vows his sister exchanged with the man she loved.

At the reception, Charles had to go back to the wheelchair for a bit, his legs and back aching. He smiled and talked and drank (probably a bit more than he ought) and took no notice whatsoever of Erik, nursing his own drink in a corner and watching him, talking to no one except Azazel. Charles held himself together, determinedly not ruining the lovely party, until Raven and Azazel finally left for their honeymoon, seen off by a great deal of shouting and handfuls of birdseed.

As soon as their car was out of sight, Charles rose from his chair, grabbed Erik by the shirtfront, and dragged him into the nearest janitorial closet.

“All right,” Charles snarled, absolutely _not_ thinking about the muscular chest under his fists or the many other times he and Erik had crept into closets and bathrooms during formal events. “Explain yourself.”

Erik blinked at him for a moment. “Azazel is an old friend from college, he asked me to—”

“No, not that!” Charles yanked harder on Erik’s shirtfront. “The accident, Erik. Explain yourself about the bloody accident.”

“Don’t you remember?” Erik swallowed. “I took the corner too fast, braked too late—”

“You nearly killed me.”

“I know.”

Charles felt as if something hot and alive were trying to crawl out of his skin. “Do you know what was the first thing I said when I woke up, after three weeks in a coma? I said ‘where’s Erik? Is Erik all right?’”

Erik looked like he’d been punched in the stomach. Charles… did not find that as satisfying as he would have expected.

“And you _were_ all right, they told me, barely a scratch. You hardly set foot inside the hospital. And you certainly didn’t come back, did you.” Charles was horrified to realize his eyes were wet. “You _abandoned_ me! I was in the hospital for almost six months, and not a single word from you, not then and not since. You abandoned me.”

Erik’s hands had drifted up to cradle Charles’s face, tentative and shaky. “I didn’t think you’d want me there. I thought you’d never want to see me again.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I came anyway, though. At night, when your family had gone, I would sneak in… but when they said you were awake, and you couldn’t walk, you’d never walk and it was my fault, I couldn't…” He withdrew his hands, clenching them into fists at his sides. “I’m sorry, Charles.”

Charles realized, as if from a great distance, that Erik was supporting most of his weight as his legs threatened to give out, that he had tears on his face and still had not let go of Erik’s shirt. “You didn’t think I’d want you,” he whispered. “Of course I wanted you there, Erik.”

“Even though I did this to you?” _This_ was punctuated by a glance downward at his faltering legs; Erik’s arms were around his waist now, holding him up, and Charles wanted to choke and scream and fight back against the fact that it felt amazing to be in Erik’s arms again.

“Of course I still wanted you there. How am I supposed to punish you if you’re not there?” Charles said, and then, incredibly, he was laughing, tiny breathless half-sob laughter that spread quickly to Erik, with a note of disbelief in it, and then—

And then they were kissing, Charles not at all certain how it happened or who started it but thinking _for heaven’s sake don’t stop_. And nothing was fixed, nothing was okay, but for the first time since he woke up in the hospital, it felt like… it felt like someday it might be.


End file.
